


What Surprised Him

by almostsophie1



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-02
Updated: 2016-05-05
Packaged: 2018-04-24 10:58:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4916995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/almostsophie1/pseuds/almostsophie1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jemma Hawke constantly surprised Fenris. And he surprised himself by falling for her.</p><p>The events of DAII through Inquisition, with Fenris determined to remain by her side.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Who is She?

            Jemma Hawke constantly surprised Fenris.

            His first, unpleasant surprise was her magic. She slammed her staff into the floor of Danarius’s mansion, breaking stone and sucking demons into the ground. Her hair whipped around her face as she summoned lightning to strike a shade that would’ve pierced Fenris’s heart. He found himself both wary and angry to have stumbled into the presence of yet another mage. He questioned her in the courtyard, watching her movements carefully.

            _“What do I seek? Usually, some decent work and enough money to buy the swill at the Hanged Man.” Hawke snorts, but her eyes are calculating as she looks at Fenris.“Should I be seeking something else? Maybe handsome elves who seem to detest mages on principle?”_

            The next surprise was that while Hawke might be a mage, she was nothing like a magister. She had nothing, asked for nothing, took nothing. She swore loudly during games of cards at the Hanged Man, which the dwarf had convinced Fenris to attend. She drank and held her alcohol well, never lashing out with magic, never abusing her power. She was a flirt as well, winking at Fenris, smirking at the abomination, teasing the dwarf. She was often shameless. She was… much more than just a mage.

            _“Tell me you didn’t actually say that!” Varric is doubled over, his hand smacking the table._

_Hawke wiggles her eyebrows suggestively. “I did. And what’s even more ridiculous—it worked. Poor man was trying to get out of his breeches to show me the color of his underpants when Isabela hit him over the head from behind. We were in and out of the warehouse in a flash.”_

_Fenris shakes his head. “Are you going to make it a habit? Leaving guards unconscious with their pants half-down?”_

_“Only because Hawke said we couldn’t have any fun first,” Isabela says._

_“Forget I asked,” Fenris grumbles, and Hawke laughs. Fenris decides that he likes making Hawke laugh._

            It was not a surprise, though, that she helped other mages whenever she could. Fenris would grow frustrated, and he realized that Hawke would begin to leave him behind when she would be interacting with her kind. But she seemed to have this need to protect—not just mages, but a little girl who had been kidnapped, a Templar who had gone missing, her friends, her family… Fenris.

            _“If you’re looking to start a life, you could stay.” Hawke says lightly. It’s a rare moment that she’s not smirking or making jokes, her expression open. Honest._

_“I could see myself staying. For the right reasons.” Fenris answers, shifting his position in the chair. The mansion always feels too big around him, and he a ghost haunting it._

_Hawke tilts her head to the side. “And what would the right reasons be?”_

_Fenris watches her. She always asks him questions, forcing him to think, to explain, to feel. “Maybe the right people.”_

_She smiles._

            Another surprise came the night Hawke nearly died. Fenris had to drag her to the abomination’s clinic after a scrape in Lowtown. The abomination had peeled off her outer robes, leaving her in a tattered undershirt. Her pale skin was too white against the dark red blood seeping through a gash in her side. She gripped Fenris’s hand tightly as she gasped for breath, wheezing as the abomination shouted that her lung was collapsing. Her cold blue eyes were unfocused as she began to slump, and Fenris cradled her head, Hawke’s ebony hair soft against his fingers.

            _“I’m losing her.” The abomination panics, pressing his hands to Hawke’s side, magic streaming from his hands._

_“Don’t,” Fenris growls, unsure if it’s to Hawke or to the mage standing over them._

            He surprised himself at that moment by realizing he was… distressed at that thought of her dying. And she was a mage.

            _“Hawke,” Fenris says quietly as the abomination sinks onto the cot beside them. The woman coughs herself awake for just a moment, tremors shaking her whole frame._

_“This isn’t how I pictured the Maker’s bosom,” Hawke murmurs, attempting a joke even at this time. “But I won’t turn down seeing a pretty face.”_

_Fenris rolls his eyes, but releases the breath he’s been holding as he lets Hawke fall asleep, her head on his lap._

            It was not a surprise, then, that he worried while she was gone in the Deep Roads. She went with the dwarf, with her surly brother, with the abomination. But she returned without her brother, waiting on a letter from an order of warriors who could maybe have saved the precious family she had left.

              _“So fucking stupid,” Hawke slurs, waving the bottle of wine around. “Fucking darkspawn. Fucking stupid me taking my baby brother into the Deep Roads. Fucking Grey Wardens not telling me what the hell happened to Carver.”_

_Fenris doesn’t know what to say. He’s never learned how to console. Yet Hawke came to him—at first just saying she wanted to drink. And now, with her sitting in front of the fire, he knows she came because she’s hurting._

_He doesn’t take the bottle from her either, only sits next to her when she starts crying, her delicate nose turning red, tears rolling down pale cheeks. He waits until she passes out to pick her up gently, then tuck her into his bed. She sobs even in her sleep._

Hawke then surprised him with her strength. Even before the letter from Carver arrived, the woman was back out in Kirkwall, helping her mother try to buy back the estate in Hightown. She laughed with Varric, pulled pranks with Isabela, helped the abomination in the clinic, taught the blood mage how to avoid muggings, drove Aveline crazy, dragged Fenris to games of Wicked Grace.

            _“It’s just an estate, but it makes mother happy.” Hawke yawns, tilting her chair back to prop her feet on their table in the Hanged Man._

_“Just an estate?” The blood mage has a ridiculous, entranced expression on her face. “It’s huge, Hawke! I wasn’t sure earlier today if I was stepping inside a castle or your house.”_

_Hawke snorts. “Do you have any idea how much cleaning it’s going to take? Bodahn helps out, but half the time it’s, ‘Jemma, dear, the banisters are getting dusty. Jemma, dear, your mabari got into the pantry again.’”_

_Fenris wonders if he’s ever cleaned Danarius’s mansion._

_“Now that you're rich as hell, will you finally go shopping with me?” Isabela asks, sticking her lower lip out to pout while making seductive eyes at Hawke. “There’s that shop with the leather corsets and lacy breast-bands I’ve been telling you to visit for months.”_

_Fenris realizes he chose the wrong minute to take a drink as he chokes on his ale. Varric gives him the side-eye as Hawke laughs. “Why the hell would I want a lacy breast-band?”_

_“It’s sexy.” Isabela shrugs._

_Fenris has no doubt that Hawke would look more than sexy wearing anything that involved lace. But Hawke was much too practical for that. Yet... her soft curves, beautiful pale skin, her smirking devilishly as she teases…_

_Fenris feels the tips of ears turn red as Isabela begins to describe in great detail the different kinds of breast-bands that the shop sells. Fenris decides that he’s thinking far too many indecent thoughts before excusing himself and going to get another drink. A cold one._

Hawke continued to surprise him. She began to keep the company of a chantry brother—the Prince of Starkhaven. And she flirted with Sebastian enough to make Fenris frustrated. He reminded himself he had nothing to offer her, even if she could ever be interested in a runaway slave.

            _“Isabela, it doesn’t really work that way.” Sebastian says, his voice exasperated._

_Hawke taps her fingers on her chin. “So, when you take a vow of chastity… you can’t even-”_

_“Not anything.” Sebastian cuts her off._

_Isabela bursts out laughing, as Hawke sighs, "What a shame. No loopholes." Isabela repeats the word 'holes', and then has Hawke chortling as well._

_Fenris glares at the side of the Prince’s head, and finds himself growing more and more… jealous._

The next surprise hit Fenris in the stomach. Hadriana. Hawke accompanied him to the Slaver Caverns, fought by his side. When he killed Hadriana, he thought of nothing but his anger and his hatred. Information about his sister or not, the bitch deserved to die. But when he turned to face Hawke, her eyes were filled with surprise. He’d crushed the heart of a defenseless woman before her. He felt no regret. But Hawke responded with gentle concern. And Fenris answered her concern with anger.

            _“May she rot. And all the other mages with her.” Fenris snarls._

_He doesn’t miss the flash of hurt across her face. She reaches out to him. “Fenris, maybe we should leave.”_

_“Don’t comfort me!” He jerks back before she can touch him. “You saw what was done here. There’s always going to be some reason, some excuse why mages need to do this. Even if I found my sister, who knows what the magisters have done to her. What does magic touch that it doesn’t spoil?”_

_“There is no excuse for this.” Hawke says quietly. “I’m not going to offer one. I just want you to **talk** to me. Actually talk. Not like this.”_

_“I… need to go.” Fenris can’t look her in the eye as he ducks his head, escaping. Running._

It was not a surprise that Fenris ran. He’d been running for so long, it was what he was best at. But he surprised himself by waiting for Hawke in her estate. He needed to see her. He needed to say something. To apologize. But when she arrived, she was direct as always, yet still soft… caring. Even if she never understood what went on in Tevinter, the depth of the scars, she never marked them as insignificant, never acted like they didn’t matter. And somehow, when she told him not to leave, he kissed her.

            _Hawke’s eyes glitter as Fenris breaks away, his hands still holding her hips. “I don’t know—“_

_“What?” Hawke puts a hand on Fenris’s chest, over his heart. Here she is, making him explain again._

_“I came here to apologize. Do… do you want this?” He asks, voice barely audible. 'Do you want me?' Maybe that is the real question that he's thinking of, but he finds he can't even voice it. It was a shock that Hawke even kissed him back._

_Hawke presses a light kiss to his cheek, having to tilt her chin up to do so. “I want nothing more from you than you want to give.”_

_“I want you.” Fenris murmurs._

_“Thank the Maker for that,” Hawke snakes her arms around his neck and kisses him again, soft and warm and everything to Fenris._

_“Is this…” Fenris tries to stop his head from swimming as their hands begin to wander, pulling the red ribbon from Hawke’s hair that keeps the strands away from her face. “Is this alright?”_

_Hawke gives this breathless little laugh. “Yes.” She wraps her legs around his waist, and Fenris holds her weight as he begins to carry her up to her room. She leaves a trail of kisses across his forehead, down his nose. “Tell me if you want to stop,” Hawke whispers._

_It’s the first time he’s been given the option._

_“I will,” Fenris answers roughly, kicking Hawke’s door open and using his shoulder to slam it closed again._

_She giggles as he tosses her on the bed, covering her body with his own. Her hands grasp at his hair as he kisses every part of her skin he can get to, and when he can’t reach anymore of it, she’s tugging off her robes with a brilliant grin and cloudy eyes, and Fenris knows that he’s given part of himself to this woman, this mage, already. He murmurs into her ear, “I’m yours.”_

It didn’t surprise Fenris that he never asked to stop. But what did surprise him were the memories that came crashing back, burning into his dreams as he woke, Hawke’s head on his chest, Fenris’s lyrium fire on his skin. Names, sounds, smells—they all hit him at once and made him writhe in pain. Being with Hawke… it made him hurt. It made him remember, but then stole those memories back again, filling him and wrenching it all away again. He knew he was running again when he dressed quietly, but Hawke woke. She tried to make him talk to her again, but he couldn’t explain. And he left.

            _“Broody, I think you might’ve screwed up just a bit.” Varric says as Isabela glares daggers at Fenris from the doorway._

_“I swear by Andraste’s holy tits, I will pluck out your eyeballs.” Isabela sneers. Fenris has never been on the receiving end of that sneer- the pirate gave it rarely, as she took so few things seriously, and Fenris had never done anything in the past to earn her ire. But he knows part of him deserves it now. For leaving her, watching as she rubbed sleep from her eyes and didn't argue when he left her._ _  
_

_Fenris doesn’t move from the chair in Varric’s room as Isabela stalks forward. “Is she…” Fenris can only drift off._

_“She won’t tell me details. Only that she wanted **me** to check on **you**.” Isabela jabs a finger at Fenris._

It surprised Fenris that Hawke would be worried about him first. But then he realized it was so consistent with who Hawke was. He avoided her at first, aware she was spending more and more time with the abomination in the clinic. But when Merrill burst into Danarius’s estate with the news that Leandra was missing, Fenris was immediately by Hawke’s side again. He watched as the last part of Hawke’s family was wrenched from her. He held her as she cried herself to sleep, this time with no wine bottle in hand.

            _“I didn’t protect her,” Hawke sniffs into Fenris’s shoulder. “First it was Bethany. Then Carver. Now Mother. I just wanted to keep them safe.”_

_Fenris holds her, again unsure of how to console._

_“Say something. Anything.” Hawke buries her face in his chest now._

_“They say death is only a journey.” Fenris tries, knowing he’s failing miserably._

_Hawke actually laughs, the sound watery. “Next you’re going to start reciting the Chant of Light.”_

_Fenris pulls her closer. “I’m afraid I don’t know the verses. But I’ve never seen the point of filling these moments with empty talk.”_

And Hawke surprised him by fighting harder to protect her friends—to protect Kirkwall. It seemed the more people she lost, the more people she took under her wing. She protected the whole of the city of chains when the Qunari attacked, rampaging and murdering. Hawke was a force to be reckoned with, storming through Kirkwall with blue eyes blazing, defending the defenseless. Protecting them. She protected Isabela when the pirate returned with the Tome of Koslun.

            _Fenris can’t take his eyes off the scene, can’t even flinch when the Arishok impales Hawke. He did this. He suggested this._

_Hawke screams, the sound stopping Fenris’s heart. The Arishok throws her to the ground, his blade sliding out of Hawke’s stomach. She lies in a pool of her own blood, but somehow manages the strength to flick her fingers forward as the Arishok advances, the stone floor of the Viscount’s Keep gripping the Arishok’s feet._

_She presses her hands to her stomach, trying to heal the gaping hole running through her._

_Fenris is terrified. More terrified than he’s ever been in his entire life. But he knows he can’t intervene. He can’t protect her. Because she’s protecting them._

_Hawke somehow stands, her robes stained red, just as the Arishok begins charging toward her again. But she waves her hands and the room explodes with light, air sizzling and static as lightning strikes the Arishok._

_Hawke grabs her staff from the floor, slams it, and wrenches a pillar down, crushing the Arishok._

_The Qunari doesn’t move. Hawke sways where she stands._

_But she wins. She protects Kirkwall. She saves them._

Fenris was surprised when she lived. The surprise was everything to him, and after hours of feeling like he couldn’t breathe, the abomination told all who had gathered that Hawke would live.

            _“Fenris, I can stay with her next.” Aveline says, her voice making an attempt at ‘gentle.’_

_“I remain at her side,” Fenris answers stubbornly, his fingers intertwined with Hawke’s, his eyes watching the rise and fall of her chest._

_Aveline grimaces at him, but he ignores her. The Captain settles down across the room instead, and Fenris stays with Hawke until she opens her beautiful blue eyes again._

_This time, she doesn’t comment on the Maker’s bosom or on Fenris’s face._

_Instead she croaks, “I believe I’ve been impaled.”_

_Fenris shakes his head at her, brushing dark hair away from her face. “You nearly died.”_

_“That’s half of the fun,” Hawke replies weakly._

_Fenris starts to pull his hand away, but Hawke’s fingers twitch, like if she had the strength she would hold on to him._

_So Fenris stays._

Hawke surprised him next by becoming Champion. She took the title with a laugh, calling it ridiculous. Fenris couldn’t see her as a Champion. She was a Protector. Not someone who fought duels for her personal enjoyment. But she continued to solve problems that weren’t her own, and Fenris wondered if she somehow viewed herself as responsible for trying to help all of them. She did this all with her typical veneer of a jester, however.

            _“Alright, alright. I’ll make you a bet, Isabela.” Hawke grins, leaning over her ale. “If you can get that man over there to propose to you by midnight, I’ll buy you that corset you were eyeing last week.”_

_Fenris’s eyes flick to Hawke as she speaks. He wonders for a moment if Hawke still shops for lacy breast-bands with Isabela, then. There’s a flash of jealousy as he foolishly hopes that Hawke has not found someone... someone else. He’s heard nothing, but Hawke can be discreet when she wishes. And it has been far longer than he could expect her to wait- and he's aware that Hawke could no longer even care about him, no longer remember their night together as vividly and longingly as he does._

_Isabela glances over her shoulder at the man obviously leering at her from the bar. “Done.” Isabela tosses back the last of her ale. “And I want the matching whip with it if I can get him to propose by eleven.”_

_Hawke snorts. “Deal.”_

_Varric shakes his head as Isabela saunters off across the Hanged Man, and Hawke returns her attention to the cards in front of her._

_Fenris quickly loses that night, because he can’t stop wondering if Hawke has bought a corset of her own…. And who had seen her in it._

Fenris was more surprised with himself than anyone else when he snapped at the Antivan Crow for propositioning Hawke. He _knew_ it was none of his business. Hawke had laughed it off, but on the way back from Kirkwall, simply told Fenris she had no intention of sleeping with the Crow, but it was none of Fenris’s business any more who she did what with, when, where,  how, or why.

            _“I apologize. It was not my place.” Fenris says, forcing himself to meet her eyes. The others have started setting up camp in the clearing ahead._

_“No, it really wasn’t.” Hawke answers bluntly. She sighs then. “I don’t know what we are, Fenris. I’ve never really been sure. But I know that I care about you. No matter what else is going on, that's the truth of it.”_

_“Hawke…”_

_She slaps a cheerful expression back in place. “So you don’t get to decide who gets into my pants! Or what gets into my pants, for that matter.” Hawke gives Fenris a grin as she heads into the clearing where the Merrill is bickering with Sebastian about the proper way to set up a tent._

_Fenris stares after her. She still cares. Somehow, she still cares for him. But... would she have taken the assassin up on his offer? Was she sometimes with other people? She joins in on the discussion about proper tent making, making the argument completely ridiculous when she says it's all about preparing the tent so spiders can't get inside._

A terrible surprise came in the form of Danarius. Fenris walked into the Hanged Man and recognized his sister immediately, images flashing in his mind of gardens and little children playing. But he felt her betrayal like a knife in his back when his old master appeared, laughing. Hawke was furious, and Fenris could feel nothing but a burning, choking hate as they began to fight. The hate didn’t stop screaming, coursing through his veins, even when Danarius was nothing more than a lifeless heap. He turned on Varania, next. His sister. The traitor.

            _“And now you have no chance at all.” Fenris hisses as he advances on the woman, lyrium igniting under his skin._

_Varania cowers, stepping back with horror in her eyes. Eyes that Fenris knows match his own in color. “Please don’t do this, please, tell him to stop,” she begs, looking now at Hawke._

_“Fenris,” Hawke moves to Fenris’s side, a purple bruise blooming across her face, her robes splattered with blood. “This is your decision, but you have to think about it. This is your family. And the only family you'll ever have. If you kill her, there's no bringing it back.”_

_“Elf. Fenris,” Varric steps forward. “Don’t. It won’t help. Trust me.”_

_Fenris’s hands curl into fists. Hawke and Varric both lost their own families. And Fenris, now that he has his, wants nothing to do with it. “Get out.” Fenris spits out the words and watches Varania flee, throwing over her shoulder that he wanted, **wanted,** those markings. _

It surprised him how much it hurt. The pain from hearing Varania’s words about his past, the agony of his life being ripped away from him, the scars from being a slave—it hurt. And it didn’t go away.      He found himself telling Hawke these things, the frustration, the taste of ashes he couldn’t get out of his mouth. She listened, as she always did. She asked him about his future.

            _“Perhaps it is time to move forward. I just… don’t know where that leads. Do you?” Fenris sits in front of the fire with Hawke, and for once, neither of them are drinking._

_Hawke considers him for a moment, firelight glinting off of her dark hair. “When you move forward, Fenris, you should go where you want to go. Do what you want to do. Be with who you want to be with.”_

_Fenris nearly laughs. She always refuses to give him straight advice about his life, wanting him to make his own decisions. “You,” he finds himself saying._

_“Me?” Hawke asks, leaning forward to the point where Fenris can smell the cherry blossom soap she uses._

_“I want to be with you. The rest… the rest I’ll have to think about.” Fenris forces himself to say. “We haven’t talked about what happened between us three years ago.”_

_“It’s a damn long time to not talk about it,” Hawke mutters, her face inches from his. Fenris could count her eyelashes if he wasn’t so distracted by the warmth that she radiated, the fire paling in comparison to the woman before him._

_“I was a fool.”_

_Hawke shakes her head. “A fool who was hurting.”_

_“But then I hurt you. And I thought it better if you hated me. I deserve no less. But it isn’t better.” Fenris admits, slowly raising a hand to place it on Hawke’s cheek, his thumb moving along her jaw line._

_“I was pissed as hell, Fenris. But I never hated you.” Hawke covers Fenris’s hand with her own, holding his palm to the curve of her cheek. She smiles at him. The unguarded smile she gives, not the one she puts on when she pretends. Her lips then form a smirk. “But an apology would be nice.”_

_Fenris chuckles. “I should have asked for forgiveness long ago.” He feels a weight now, heavy in his chest as his voice lowers. “Can you forgive me now?”_

_Hawke closes the miniscule space between them to press her lips gently to his. “Yes,” she whispers before moving her free hand to carefully brush white hair out of Fenris’s eyes. “I don’t want this—us—to hurt you. If you have to leave again because of the pain, the memories—“_

_Fenris shakes his head. “If I could go back to that night with you, I would stay. Nothing is worse than the thought of living without you.”_

_Hawke’s breath catches. “Fenris.” She kisses him again, this time moving close enough where she can mold herself against him._

_When they break apart for air, Fenris rasps, “I suppose this would be a good time to ask if you’re currently seeing anyone.”_

_Hawke’s chest is heaving as she raises a skeptical eyebrow at Fenris. “Why would even think that?”_

_“You and Isabela still go shopping for… for…” Fenris doesn’t know exactly what to call them._

_“Oh, I wear those for myself.” Hawke grins as she leans in to whisper into Fenris’s ear, “And now, I can show them off to you, too. Care to see the ones I have on right now?”_

_“Venhedis. Yes,” Fenris growls from somewhere deep inside his chest as he pulls her into his lap and crushes his lips to hers._

            Fenris was surprised when he didn’t wake up next to Hawke with memories clamoring inside of his head. He was surprised that he stayed in bed with her, talking quietly and feeling the rumble of her laugh as she pressed herself against his side, keeping her arm draped over his stomach. He was surprised that he loved calling her Jemma when they were alone together. He was surprised to find that while she couldn’t cook anything without burning it, she loved baking and looked beautiful even with flour across her face. He was surprised to realize she loved cats just as much as she loved her mabari. He was surprised, though he shouldn’t have been, when she named her newly found cat Fish (after all, her mabari was named Squirrel). He was surprised to find himself spending more and more time at the Hawke estate. He was surprised when he realized he had several changes of clothes in her wardrobe. He was surprised to realize just how much of himself was all Hawke’s—it was all of him.

            He was not surprised when Kirkwall fell down around them, and not surprised when Hawke spared the abomination who caused it all with furious tears in her eyes. He was not surprised that her friends fought by her side against Meredith. He was not even surprised that he was fighting on the side of mages, since it was for Hawke. He was not surprised that they won the battle, and that Hawke had kept all of her friends safe. He was not surprised to see her pull Carver into a hug and then call him a bastard only a few moments later. He was not surprised when she told Anders to run.

            Jemma Hawke once constantly surprised Fenris. But now, Fenris found that he knew some things for certain. And one of those things that surprised him at first, now made complete and total sense—when he ran, he ran with Hawke.

            _“I take you to exciting places, don’t I?” Hawke asks, leaning back to rest her head on Fenris’s shoulder._

_Waves crash against the hull of the ship, and he can hear Isabela barking orders from somewhere on deck. Fenris keeps his arms wrapped around Hawke. “Exciting?” Fenris murmurs._

_“Hm, maybe not exciting. Strange, though.” Hawke amends._

_Fenris holds her tighter. He knows her nightmares have grown worse after Kirkwall was left in destruction. She tried to stay, but when Varric heard word that the chantry was sending their people to Kirkwall, Aveline had practically forced Hawke out of the city for her protection._

_“Strange indeed,” Fenris presses his lips against her hair. “But I will walk into any future as long as I am by your side.” His hands move to her stomach, feeling the swell of her skin under her cloak and travel shirt. “And we’ll walk with another from now on, I suppose.”_

_“We’ll have to think of a name.” Hawke says._

_“I’m not sure I trust you with naming our child,” Fenris mutters, eyeing Squirrel as the mabari snuffles in a sea-sick heap._

_Hawke snorts. “I just love your vote of confidence.”_

_“We have time to think of something.” Fenris watches the ocean, breathing in the salty air._

_Hawke is quiet for a moment before saying, "How about 'Chipmunk'?"_

_Fenris groans._

_"Alright, not Chipmunk. Cupcake?"_

_"You can't be serious," Fenris grumbles into her neck._

_Hawke laughs and presses her back against Fenris's chest. "I love you, Fenris," she says, and he can hear the smile in her voice._

_“And I am yours.”_


	2. His Everything

            He knew the rhythm of Hawke’s breathing better than the beat of his own heart. It was how he could sense that in the weeks that followed their departure from Kirkwall, Hawke’s nightmares only continued to grow worse.

            Fenris slept lightly. He learned the catch of air in her throat, the sharp inhalation, the ragged wheezing that all meant she was dreaming of the city in flames again.

            _“Hawke,” he murmurs in her ear, wiping sweat-slicked strands of hair away from her face. “Wake up.”_

_Her eyes fly open as she gasps into the darkness. “Fenris?”_

_“Here.” He pulls her closer to him, accommodating for the ever-growing swell of her stomach. Some nights it’s the movement of the little one that wakes her—but she breathes different then. “We’re in Hercinia, staying at an inn for the night.”_

_“Not Kirkwall,” Hawke’s voice is quiet, her breast still rising and falling rapidly._

_“No. Not Kirkwall.” Fenris confirms, pressing his lips to her forehead and not drawing back._

_She shudders for a moment, a remnant of her past more than any dream. Fenris holds her gently until her breathing evens out, until she falls back asleep cradled against his chest._

            They travelled carefully. She was the Champion, and he the Champion’s lover—distinctive by the white tattoos he could never hide. Fenris was warier now than before, as Hawke was not in a condition to fight. Even had she not been carrying their child, she would lose sight of where she was. Many times, Fenris had to remind her after a run-in with bandits or bounty hunters that they were not in Kirkwall. Her eyes would glaze over whenever she killed. She was always an outstanding fighter, a talented mage careful with her abilities. But killing—it brought her back to the city of chains.

            She seemed to always be living inside a nightmare that repeated itself over and over again.

            _“I hated Kirkwall when we were there,” Hawke smiles wryly as she moves to sit behind Fenris at their campfire. “But now I would give anything to go back to then. To do it over and get it right this time.”_

_“There was nothing more you could have done to save the city, Jemma.” Fenris answers her quietly. “The city would have torn itself apart years before had you not been there. Or the Qunari would have simply crushed the city without you to stop them.”_

_Hawke’s hands move gently as she uses a sharpened knife to cut Fenris’s hair, the tugging sensation almost relaxing. “But there’s so many things I should’ve seen coming. Things I should’ve prevented,” Hawke whispers._

They were two broken people who had put themselves together again, sharing pieces of shattered hearts and splintered pasts. But they were part of each other now, through that process. Fenris knew it well. Hawke didn’t often talk about her dreams, or about her regrets. But he was always aware. Even her bright smiles did not make him forget.

            But they were not without joy, now. Hawke was haunted, not empty.

            _She’s laughing, pressing her hand over her mouth as her eyes glitter with amusement. The most recent letter from the dwarf is pinched between two fingers. “Fenris, did you really tell Varric I looked like I was about to explode?”_

_Fenris’s head jerks up from where he’s seated, legs tucked neatly underneath him on the thin mattress the inn’s rooms provide, tattered book in hand. He blinks. “I… did not know how else to describe it.”_

_Hawke lets out a whoop, smacking her hand on the pillow. “You couldn’t think of any other way to word it? Not ‘round with our child’ or ‘stretched with the growing life inside of her’?”_

_Fenris scratches the back of his head. “Are those truly more accurate descriptions?”_

_That only makes Hawke laugh harder. “About to explode, indeed!”_

He was hers. Completely and utterly hers, as she was his. He never imagined that he would love another. It didn’t seem possible.

            Yet it happened.

            He was surprised yet again when he held his daughter for the first time.

            _“You don’t have to stand over there like she’s going to bite you,” Hawke says bluntly. Her face is exhausted, and the midwife is leaving the room with her supplies now that the baby has been declared healthy, washed, and returned to her mother._

_“I’m aware.” Fenris mutters from his spot by the window, which is really only a pace away from the bed in the small space._

_“She doesn’t have teeth yet, if that’s a valid concern.” Hawke continues with the jest._

_Fenris has never handled babies before. He’s not good with children, either. And the baby—his and Hawke’s baby—is so tiny, strangely pink, and had been wailing earlier._

_“I… don’t know what to do.” Fenris admits, feeling a frown appear with the words._

_Hawke gives him a smile—his favorite smile, even though it’s tired. “What are you worried about?” She asks softly, cradling the little baby close to her chest._

_The question, as always, catches Fenris slightly off-guard. “I may not do something right. I am not… accustomed to children.”_

_Hawke snorts at that, the baby snuffling at the sound. “I’m not either, Fenris. There wasn’t exactly time for either of us to be nannies while running around Kirkwall.” Hawke’s expression softens and somehow beckons him forward. “We’ll figure this out together.”_

_Fenris stares at the sight of the two of them for a moment more before stepping to the bed. “She is… beautiful.”_

_“She has your eyes, you know.” Hawke presses a gentle kiss on the top of the baby’s head, the wisps of dark hair still damp from washing. The baby wakes at that, crying again, little face scrunching. “What did I tell you? No baby practice,” Hawke sighs._

_Fenris sits on the bed carefully, observing the way the infant’s delicate fingers curl as she wails._

_“Would you like to hold her? You just have to support her head and keep her close. I promise it’s not too difficult.” Hawke says over the squalling._

_Fenris isn’t entirely sure he wants his first attempt at holding the baby—his daughter—to be while she’s wailing like this. But he reaches out even so, being sure to keep the baby’s head from lolling as he feels her weight in his arms and holds her against him._

_The little girl seems surprised by the movement, startlingly green eyes opening slightly as she squints and hiccups. She quiets in Fenris’s arms._

_“Beautiful,” Fenris repeats the word, his voice barely above a whisper. He loves her, loves this tiny creature in his arms, loves that she is Hawke’s and she is his. Loves that she is whole and perfect and protected. “Filia mea,” he murmurs the words again and again._

It was not easy, however, for he and Hawke to handle a baby with ultimately no knowledge of infancy. Hawke had been young when Bethany and Carver were born, and the midwife had to constantly explain various pieces of information that in hindsight seemed quite obvious.

            Fenris bolted to the midwife’s home in the village many times over the baby’s cries that were, according to the midwife, quite normal and nothing to be concerned over.

            Fenris remained unconvinced, and constantly sat vigil to watch Hawke and their daughter.

            The name, when it finally came, was a surprise to Fenris. He had expected Hawke to try to name the little girl ‘Muffin’, or something of equal tactlessness. In the week before they found a name, their daughter had simply been ‘love’, or for Fenris, ‘parva avis’ when he rocked her to sleep in wonderment.

            _“Helen.” Hawke says determinedly one night after the baby had finally fallen asleep after what felt like hours of the infant’s tears._

_“What?”_

_Hawke rolls her eyes, the motion discernable even in the dimly lit room. “Are you that surprised I found a name that was decent?”_

_“A little, yes.” Fenris answers honestly, though he smirks at Hawke._

_“How very kind of you,” Hawke winks, and she kisses Fenris lightly when he slides underneath the thin blanket beside Hawke. “I thought—it could be her first name, or maybe her second. You can decide.”_

_Fenris mulls it over for a moment. “It’s beautiful.”_

_He’s used that word more since their daughter was born. Beautiful._

_“Strong, too. Has a similar ring to her your name, too. Helen, daughter of Fenris.”_

_Fenris smiles softly at that. “Helen Avis.”_

_“Avis?”_

_“Bird. In Tevene. So she can have her mother’s wings.” Fenris says quietly._

_Hawke watches him, warmth flooding her face. “It’s perfect,” she whispers, rolling into Fenris. “Our little bird.” She nestles further into his chest, and they fall asleep together, Hawke’s breathing steady._

Fenris became unguarded in the time he spent with Hawke and Helen. They weren’t moving enough—lost in the feeling of family. Something Fenris felt so strongly when the three of them sat up together at night, reading stories. Hawke’s light tone, Fenris’s gravelly one contrasting hers so sharply. Helen would gurgle, or coo, the high-pitch tones full of tinkling sunshine. Those sounds were much more preferable to her cries.

            The wolf, the hawk, and their little bird.

            But they were still being hunted.

            _The door creaks, a scorch mark blackening the wood as Fenris draws his sword. He can feel his heart slamming against his ribs. He wants to call out to Hawke—beg her and Helen to be safe—to be alive. But he knows hunters. He knows they would be silently waiting._

_Fire flashes before his eyes before it disappears._

_“Fenris.”_

_One word. His name. Hawke’s voice._

_She’s shaking, Helen clutched to her chest. Her pale face is drained of any color, but she’s unhurt and he can breathe, air rushing back into his lungs._

_“Jemma.” Her name falls from his lips like a prayer._

_There are three charred bodies in their little hut, burns on the floorboards. Hawke is always strong, and Fenris has never been more grateful for her magic, for her talent with flames that he once scowled at in their first years of friendship._

_“We have to move,” Hawke whispers._

So they were on the run yet again. And they ran together, Hawke with a new scar on her right arm and worsening dreams.

It was not long after that they heard the news of the Conclave—and that the Conclave was destroyed. Hawke poured over Varric’s letter in the dim candlelight, swearing.

            _“Fucking explosions?” Hawke’s hands grip the edges of the paper tightly, skin stretching over her knuckles._

_Fenris holds Helen as he paces the room. He’s already gone over the letter twice, but Hawke seems intent on reading it until she has every word memorized. “Peace between the mages and Templars will not be an easy resolution,” Fenris reminds her as Helen yawns, innocent and unaware of this world on fire._

_Hawke breathes deeply. “This will splinter even the remaining Templars and mages, Fenris. This explosion… it ruined any chance of fixing what Kirkwall began.”_

_Fenris silently agrees with her, though he gently rests Helen on the mattress that sits on the ground of their rented room. He comes to kneel behind Hawke, pressing a kiss to the back of her neck as he pushes her hair out of the way. He knows what Hawke is going to say now. It doesn’t surprise him anymore._

_“I need to go. This fledgling Inquisition—I’ve tried to stay out of it, but I have to help, Fenris. I have to help.”_

_Fenris kisses her shoulder now, raised lines of flesh the evidence of past battles, none that could truly show the wounds she carries in her heart. “I know,” he murmurs._

They were already traveling to Ferelden when Hawke received word from Varric again. The dwarf obviously didn’t know they were coming—he would have no doubt tried to stop Hawke. Yet he then asked for Hawke’s help, for Corypheus had returned. The dwarf would have never called upon Hawke for assistance if it were not dire. And it was one more thing that Hawke blamed herself for, and the magnitude of her guilt didn’t surprise Fenris at all.

            He spoke with Hawke quietly as they made their way to the mountains that separated Orlais from Ferelden—to the new location of the Inquisition at Skyhold. They planned together what to do if they were in danger. Who would take Helen away? Who would stay with her if they were called to battle? Should one of them stay behind?

            No, it was not an option. He and Hawke were bound together. They wrote to Aveline and Donnic with their plans if the worst were to happen.

            _“Hawke.” The dwarf says, voice muffled. “Dwarves are sturdy, but I think you might actually crack some bones at this rate.”_

_Hawke straightens quickly, her expression caught between happiness and tears. “Maker, I missed you.”_

Varric wasted no time in introducing them to the Inquisitor. Fenris tread through Skyhold with no small amount of suspicion. He had one hand over his sword hilt at all times, and Hawke walked the halls with her hood up, Helen clutched to her chest.

            But their first meeting with the Inquisitor caught Fenris entirely by surprise.

           _“Can’t I make it a week without someone trying to kill me?”_

_Fenris narrows his eyes, though his sword remains raised, tip pointing at the chest of the young woman before him._

But it was the Inquisitor who he met—far too young and naïve to be leading the Inquisition were it not for the glowing mark on her hand. She did not have the air of a woman who would lead an army, nor did she seem particularly dignified or diplomatic to be a woman who was trying to unite Thedas.

            She was, however, determined. Hawke took to her immediately, claiming that the Inquisitor was kind and strong-willed, with intelligence hiding under her stumbling words. Fenris could see it as well. Even as the tall woman blushed and swore, she was made of steel resolve and a brilliantly sharp mind that flashed behind wide, grass green eyes.

            And so he and Hawke stayed at Skyhold with Helen, in a little room that opened into the gardens.

            Fenris wandered them, Helen in his arms, when Hawke left with the Inquisitor to meet Stroud. Her absence made him worry, knowing the effect fighting had on her.

            It was a peculiarly warm day when found himself approached by a Qunari, who then somehow roped him into training the Inquisition soldiers.

            It was odd to prowl through the ranks during their exercises with the former Templar from Kirkwall, Cullen. The Inquisition Commander exchanged few words with him, but there seemed to be a mutual understanding and respect in both of their eyes.

            Fenris always held Helen wherever he went. He was not content to let a stranger look after her. The little bird giggled sometimes when Fenris growled at a lazy recruit, but it was the Iron Bull who she truly seemed fascinated with.

            _“No. Again,” Fenris snarls, appalled at the incompetence of the soldier before him. “If you are fighting alongside a mage, your tactics must change or you will be reduced to a pile of ash.”_

_The Iron Bull stands beside him, watching with a hint of approval. “Got lots of experience fighting with mages?”_

_Fenris looks at the Qunari from the corner of his eye, keeping his attention fixed on the soldiers. “Yes.”_

_“Most of them don’t. I’d say half of them are scared shitless of the idea.”_

_“That is evident.” Fenris replies flatly._

_“Maybe you should show them.” The Iron Bull suggests. “Sometimes kids have to learn in different ways. Where’s Vi—Madame Vivienne?”_

_Fenris frowns thoughtfully, not keen on fighting beside a mage other than Hawke. But with another look at the recruits, he decides it’s inevitable if he wants them to survive._

And so the massive Qunari was the first in Skyhold, other than Varric and the Inquisitor, to hold Helen. And Fenris worked intently with the recruits, as it was at least a distraction for when Hawke was away.

            Hawke was away for too long.

            It always made Fenris impatient.

            _He can hear footsteps in the hall, delicate sounds. But it is the definitive squeak of only one boot that has Fenris standing from the bed and throwing the door open._

_“Jemma,” he says in a low voice that somehow doesn’t betray the way his heart is leaping._

_Hawke gives him a wide grin, the dark circles under her eyes not daring to dim the brightness of her smile. “Miss me?”_

_He pulls her into his arms, kisses her first on the mouth, then on her chin, her cheek, her eyelids, her hair._

_“I’ll take that as a yes,” she laughs softly as he finally releases her, and they close the door to the dark hallway. She stands on her toes to kiss him lightly. “I missed you too. Unfortunately, Crestwood was determined to be unpleasant and time consuming.”_

_Hawke moves to the edge of the room, to Helen’s little cradle._

_“What was the news?” Fenris asks her, though he can feel the answer._

_“All news is bad news,” Hawke answers with a humorless chuckle._

It only seemed to grow worse. Hawke left again, this time for the Western Approach. Fenris hated being left behind, but he was unwilling to leave Helen if it was not absolutely necessary.

            And Hawke was determined to help the Inquisition, to make up for Kirkwall. To fix the mistakes that were so far out of her control. Now she had Carver to worry about as well, with the Grey Wardens experiencing The Calling on this scale. She wrote to him before she left, and Fenris even caught her making a rare prayer.

            The Inquisitor came back with Hawke from the Western Approach, and every time Fenris saw the woman, he thought she looked older. The Inquisitor still joked, and blushed, and insisted that Fenris call her ‘Fiona’, rather than by her title.

            The weight of Thedas rested on her shoulders, and he and Hawke knew it.

            Corypheus was raising a demon army through the Grey Wardens, and he knew the feeling that rested in pit of his stomach had taken root in Hawke’s as well. They both felt the pressure of this conflict, and were very aware of the potential consequences.

            All hope lay with the Inquisitor.

            _“She reminds me of myself, you know.” Hawke mutters as they lie in bed together._

_Fenris tucks Hawke under his chin. “Truly?”_

_“Mhmm.” Hawke sticks her very cold nose into his shoulder._

_“You’re freezing,” Fenris complains, though he doesn’t move away. He mulls over the comparison for a moment. Hawke is bold, free, and without shame. She was always this way. Fiona is more cautious, always worried. And Hawke’s jokes make her blush a bright red. Yet—“You both were given burdens that should’ve never been yours to bear.”_

_“That’s part of it,” Hawke answers quietly. “I can see it in her eyes, though. She wants to protect everyone. You should see it when we travel, Fenris. If one of us even gets a scratch, she’s checking on us. She looks out for her own. I’m worried for when that won’t be possible.” Hawke sighs. “She’ll lose people soon enough. People that she cares about. I’ve seen her talk about Haven, before. She’s haunted by it.”_

_Fenris pulls Hawke closer into his chest, recognizing Hawke’s loss aching again inside her bones. “She will come through it.”_

_Hawke nods, dragging the chilly tip of her nose along his skin as she plants a soft kiss on his shoulder. “She will. But she’ll need someone to tell her that even though everyone expects her to be perfect—to save them all—she won’t be able to. But she’ll still need to be strong for them. And for herself. Inquisitor—Champion—it’s just a title. But it somehow has all the responsibilities. There’s no giving up. She won’t be able to. Because there will always be people who need her. Even if she feels like she failed…”_

_Her voice is barely audible, tired and cracking. “Even if she feels like she failed, even if she feels guilty for the deaths, for the loss, she’ll need to keep fighting for the people she loves. Even on the darkest days, when she wants to give up, she’ll always find the strength to go on.”_

_They’re quiet for a moment, and Fenris can only respond by resting his chin on the top of her head, tightening his hold around her._

_Hawke takes a shaking breath. “That’s what I’ll need to tell her.”_

They were committed to the Inquisition. There was no future if Corypheus took control of the Wardens and their demon army at Adamant. Helen would have no future.

            It surprised him that they were in agreement about this: they would go together to Adamant with the Inquisition army. With the Inquisitor.

            Helen they left at Skyhold with the chantry woman, Mother Giselle. Hawke was bright during the days of travelling. She joked with Fiona, with her companions.

            Fenris found himself stifling laughs at Hawke and Fiona, the two women so different yet so alike. Fiona towered over Hawke, and despite the Inquisitor’s noble background, she swore more than Fenris remembered Isabela and Hawke cursed together.

            The closer they drew to Adamant, the more tense Fenris grew. It was soon the afternoon before their attack. They waited for nightfall, and Fenris and Hawke stood quietly outside of the tent in the cool air.

            _Hawke helps him fasten his gauntlets. It’s a ritual for them, much like the way he combs her hair, or the way she tightens the knot on the red fabric around his wrist that marks their belonging._

_“It feels like old times, doesn’t it?” Hawke asks quietly, the corner of her lips tugging up._

_“I don’t recall invading a fortress of this size,” Fenris answers dryly._

_Hawke snorts. “You’re getting old and forgetting, I’m sure. This was our every Tuesday back in Kirkwall.”_

_Fenris rolls his eyes as Hawke moves on to his other gauntlet. “It must have escaped my notice.”_

_Hawke’s smile fades as she finishes the fastenings. “Fenris—”_

_“Do not speak of it.” Fenris murmurs._

_“Are you sure?” Hawke asks._

_The questions. Always the questions. Leaving him with the ability to say yes, or to say no. To think for himself and make decisions._

_He loves that about her._

_Fenris watches her face closely before he closes his eyes, still seeing every one of her dark eyelashes in the blackness of his mind. The smallest freckle on her right cheek. The strand of hair that always falls into her eyes._

_“Yes. I am sure.” Fenris keeps his eyes closed, leaning forward and kissing Hawke gently. He doesn’t need to see for this—he knows how he and Hawke stand, how he and Hawke talk, how he and Hawke fit together, how he and Hawke live and breathe._

_“I’m yours. Always.”_

_Fenris finally looks at her, meeting the pale blue depths that were truly the warmest summer sky. “And I am yours.”_

            He fought by her side until they were separated.

            Adamant was chaos, and it was a demon that knocked Fenris down a flight of stairs.

            He heard Hawke screaming his name, and could only shout back he was fine before they were swarmed, surrounded.

            He did not see her again—not until a soldier he knew as Miriam pointed to the highest point of Adamant. She pointed at a dragon.

            Fenris did not have time to think, but charged through the remaining demons, pushed through the chaos, trying to climb the battlements.

            His markings flashed with an explosion of magic, the lyrium wringing his skin as he saw the green of a rift swallow them—swallow Fiona, swallow Stroud, swallow the Inquisitor’s companions, swallow _Hawke._

It was a shout from the Iron Bull that made Fenris aware he was still in a battle, turning in time to cut down a despair demon. He fought again, cloaked in fear but wielding skill and anger.

            _Hawke. Hawke._

_He can only think of her. He fights his way to the center of Adamant with Varric, the dwarf’s face grim set as he watches Fenris’s back. Fenris is not simply fighting the last of the demons—he is consumed by the thought of Hawke, cutting down his enemies while only seeing her eyes._

_The Inquisition soldiers shout to each other for a sign that the area is clear, and it is then that a flash of green light appears again in the distance._

_Hawke._

_Fenris hears Fiona’s voice, cheering from the soldiers, and he runs._

_Varric catches up with him in the crowd as Fenris pushes his way through. The dwarf asks the question as they make it to the front, standing before Fiona. “Where’s Hawke?” Varric’s voice is tight._

_Fenris can’t find her. Not beside Fiona. Not in the surrounding crowd. No, not there._

_“Where is she?” The words come from his mouth, but his eyes bore into the Inquisitor’s. Fiona doesn’t answer, and Fenris closes the distance between them, his feet suddenly anchors dragging his body down. “Where is she?”_

_The Inquisitor shakes her head. “She... she stayed behind. I’m so sorry. There was a demon that blocked the way out, and she… she saved us.”_

_Stayed behind. Demon. No, it didn’t—it couldn’t... Fenris grasped the woman’s shoulders. “What are you saying?” He demanded for her to make sense. For her to say Hawke was somewhere deeper in Adamant._

_“I’m sorry, Fenris.” No, no. “Hawke stayed behind in the fade. For us. I’m so… I’m so sorry.”_

_He falls, knees crashing onto the stones of Adamant._

_Words. Words float around him._

_None of it matters. Hawke is out of reach. Hawke is—_

_There’s wetness running over his cheeks, shaking his shoulders, tearing through his chest. It breaks out of his lungs, a wordless shout that can’t bring her back._

She was gone.

            And that surprised Fenris most of all.

            Because since he had met her, since he had seen her in the Alienage, he had not known life without her. He could not imagine life bereft of Hawke. Not even the possibility of it.

            He did not leave Adamant with the Inquisition. He did not speak to anyone. He was a ghost of Adamant.

            For days, he wandered the ruins. He had been injured during the fight—a gash along his arm that left his shirt coated in blood. None of it mattered.

            He hoped to find her somewhere in the fortress. Somewhere around the corner, waiting for him. If anyone could survive the fade, it was Hawke.

            If anyone could force her way out of the fade and appear again in front of him, it was Hawke.

            She would have to survive. It was Hawke.

            After days of waiting, Fenris realized she was not coming back. At least not on her own.

            He was filled with a new determination, despite the state of his degrading body. He was on his way back to Skyhold. Fenris knew he would require at least some assessment from the Inquisitor about getting Hawke out of the fade, since it was a rift Fiona had created. Part of him wanted to kill the Inquisitor. She ripped out his heart, and he could do the same for her.

            But more than he wanted revenge, he wanted Hawke. How could he ever face his daughter without her?

            _The rain streaks down his face as he holds onto his injured arm. He is cold, chilled to the core and shivering._

_His hair falls into his eyes, too long and unkempt. But we can’t wait for Hawke’s gentle hands to cut it._

_He’s two days from Skyhold. Two days from—_

_From what? From hopelessly asking the Inquisition if their mages can venture into the fade? From continuing to hope that Hawke is alive, but trapped?_

_Fenris slumps against the tree trunk he planned to sleep against that night, rain water seeping through his skin._

_He misses Hawke. He misses Hawke in a way that he never thought possible. When she was gone with the abomination or the others in Kirkwall for days, he had missed her. When she left with the Inquisitor to travel to Crestwood and the Western Approach, he had missed her._

_This was agony._

_He’s never thought once about raising their little bird alone. No, nothing without Hawke._

He reached Skyhold at night, entering without notice and slipping through the halls. He found Mother Giselle in the room—the room that he and Hawke shared—and quietly thanked the woman before he asked her to leave him.

            Exhaustion made him slump against the wall beside Helen’s cradle, but he couldn’t bring himself to hold her. He wasn’t sure if he physically had the strength.

            It wasn’t long before he heard a knock at the door. It was the Inquisitor.

_He tells her he thought of killing her, yet the woman doesn’t leave. She worries over his arm, and Fenris asks her of fade magic. Of the possibility of Hawke escaping._

_But when Fiona says the Inquisition mages thought of solutions and found nothing, he knows he must find another away. He needs the blood mage. The witch owes Hawke, and he would make good on her debt._

_Forbidden magic be damned, he will find her._

_Fiona apologizes again in the bleak room after she unravels the dirty bandage from Fenris’s arm, babbling over it, still saying, “I’m sorry.”_

_“We both knew the risks,” Fenris finally says quietly. “Yet I never thought that Hawke…” He can’t finish the sentence, can’t complete the thought._

_“She asked me to protect you and Helen.”_

_Fenris almost smiles at that. It is Hawke, so truly Hawke, that while being trapped in the fade, she would tell the Inquisitor to look after them. “Unsurprising. Our daughter will be protected—but now it is my turn to protect Hawke.”_

_“I hope you find her, Fenris.”_

_“As do I.”_

Fenris told the woman Hawke’s words from the night Hawke pressed her icy nose to his chest, and with tears in her eyes, the Inquisitor asked Fenris to visit a healer before he left.

            He did so, allowing the infected wound on his arm to be cleaned. He would not fail Hawke now.

            Fenris left with Helen that night while the Inquisitor held a vigil.

            He passed through the Great Hall with Helen clutched to his chest, his arm treated and wrapped in a new bandage and his daughter, his _parva avis,_ sleeping peacefully. Names covered the stones of the back wall, behind the Inquisitor’s throne. Names of those who had been lost.

            The words the Inquisitor spoke now were echoing his from the hours before—were echoing Hawke’s.

            _“We know the risks of being with the Inquisition, but I ask that you stand with me to the end.” Her voice is clear and strong, not wavering even with the weight on her shoulders and the task before her. She is a leader now, the Inquisitor who commands an army and who will piece the world together. “We will not stop fighting until Corpypheus is struck down and Thedas is saved. Until we are no longer writing names on this wall. Until we make the people we love safe again.”_

Fenris travelled to Kirkwall, spending sleepless nights with his crying daughter. He had already written to Aveline and Donnic, who would keep Helen safe, and watch over her with their lives alongside their own son. And then he would find the witch, track the blood mage down wherever in Thedas she had gone. He would find Merrill, and then they would find Hawke.

            He arrived to the city of chains by ship, returning to the place where his third life truly began.

            He had lived once as Leto, and a second time with wiped memories as a slave. He lived a third time with Hawke, a reckoning of who he had been, who he was, and who he would become.

            There was no new life for him now, for there was no life without Hawke. She had changed him, and he had changed himself.

            He was truly hers, and there was nothing in Thedas nor in the fade that would keep her from him.

            _Fenris kisses the dark hair on Helen’s head as she smiles toothlessly at him._

_“Are you sure about this, Fenris?” Aveline asks, her arms folded across her chest._

_Donnic stands behind them in their humble home, their own son on his shoulders, holding Donnic’s hair with tiny fists._

_Fenris nods, though he doesn’t move to release Helen from his arms. He knows that he cannot take his daughter with him. He knows—yet it does not make the parting any easier._

_“What if you leave Helen without a father as well?” Aveline’s voice contains steel, but is somehow softened with understanding._

_“I will come back to her,” Fenris rumbles as Helen coos, as if to agree he would. “But I will not leave Hawke if there is a chance—if there is a chance that she lives.”_

_“And how long will you search?” Aveline questions again._

_Fenris presses his lips to Helen’s cheek now, finally placing her in Aveline’s hands. He’s spent the nights leading up to this memorizing his daughter’s face, the nose that is definitively Hawke’s, the pale skin and rosy cheeks that are hers as well. He’s spent the days of travelling telling her that he will never abandon her to the world. He tells her now that he will come back._

_The warrior holds his little bird gently, a contrast to the hardness in her eyes._

_“Once I find the witch, I will assess again. It would be preferable to return to Kirkwall with her—return to Helen.” Fenris answers, his heart already aching with the loss of his daughter’s reassuring weight._

_Aveline finally nods. “Then… good luck.”_

_Fenris sets his jaw. “Thank you, Aveline.” He turns to leave their quiet, their full, home._

_“She would be doing the same thing, you know.” Aveline says from behind him. “I think you two were truly meant for each other.”_

_The words reverberate through him._

_“Yes,” Fenris agrees, and it is not a surprise. For he is hers and she is his, and they chose it._

_She chose to wait for him, to love him. And he broke from his chains, from his fear, to love her. And they loved despite their scars._

_And that in itself is why they are meant for each other._

_And why he knows he will find her again._

And it would not surprise him if Hawke made her way to him first.

            No, that would not surprise him at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!


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